Plasmas are widely used for a variety of treatment and layer deposition tasks in semiconductor fabrication and other thin film applications. These applications include subtractive processes such as wafer precleaning, contaminant removal, native oxide removal, photoresist removal, plasma etching, as well as treatment processes such as oxidation, nitridation, or hydridation of a layer both during and after formation, and deposition process such as plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) or plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD). “Remote” plasma sources are frequently used, where the plasma is located at some distance from the surface to be treated or substrate on which a layer is being formed. The distance allows some filtering of the charged particles in the plasma. For example, the density of electrons and ions can be adjusted or removed from the generated plasma. “Direct” plasma sources are also used where the substrate is exposed to the plasma.
Heretofore, plasma sources have been used to provide uniform exposure for entire substrates, and experimental studies of process variables have required dedicating an entire wafer to each process condition to be tested. What is needed is a system that allows systematic exploration of process variables in a combinatorial manner with many variations on a single substrate, especially for PECVD and PEALD applications. The most promising process parameters can then be extended to the processing of entire substrates.